


Gasoline

by SmartKIN



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Peter Hale, Asexual Relationship, Asexual Stiles Stilinski, BDSM, Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Dubious Consent, Lack of Communication, M/M, Masturbation, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 03A, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Identity, Slow Build, Spanking, Top Peter Hale, Underage Kissing, Underage Relationship(s), Voyeurism, Work In Progress, asexual bdsm, identity exploration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:10:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7608643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmartKIN/pseuds/SmartKIN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a long time since Peter’s had any control over his life, and he craves it every second of every day. Stiles, on the other hand, has been forced to be in control at a far too young age, taking care not only of himself but also his dad whenever it was needed (and sometimes when it wasn’t). </p><p>When Peter realizes that it would do Stiles a world of good if he let somebody else take care of him for a change, he may have found a way to make both of their lives a lot more bearable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Fair warning:** This is a WIP and I have no idea when/if I’ll be able to write more. Read at your own risk, my pals. I also have no beta for my stories right now. We all gotta deal with that somehow.

It was in the early hours of the morning when Peter rolled into the parking lot of Beacon Hills General. He didn’t fully understand what had drawn him here, other than his vague interest in Stiles Stilinski’s well-being. That alone should not have been enough motivation, however, hence the mild consternation aimed at himself. He was getting tragically attached to Beacon Hills and its residents. Well, one resident.

Peter killed the engine and sat there in the dark, staring up ahead at the well-lit entrance of the hospital. There was no Jeep among the parked cars surrounding him — because the teal monstrosity that Stiles called a car was still wrapped around a tree in the preserve — but there was no other place Stiles could possibly be. He wasn’t at his house, Peter had checked, and he wasn’t walking home on foot either, at least not on the most logical route from the hospital to the Stilinski residence. Peter had checked that too.

But the sheriff had been kidnapped and hurt, and considering everything Peter had witnessed in the past, Stiles would most likely still be at his bedside.

So he settled down to wait.

He didn’t particularly enjoy waiting, but he could be patient when he needed to be, had been forced to learn patience during his agonizingly slow recovery, and he always played a long game if he could help it. Only fools rushed into a situation unprepared. Peter was many things, but certainly no fool.

If his patience did run out, he could always sneak into the hospital and look for the boy. For now he was content to simply wait.

Tonight had been… extraordinarily satisfying. Not the lunar eclipse, of course, he’d experienced enough loss of power to last him a lifetime. The aftermath, however… he had kept his need for revenge under lock and key for longer than was healthy. Killing the Darach had been liberating, to say the least, even more so because she would no longer be able to hurt his family. There had been enough of that already.

Peter was pulled back from his musings when he caught sight of a familiar form, spilling out of the hospital like a tidal wave. The glass doors shook violently in the wake of Stiles’ exit and Peter would have been amused if the boy hadn’t deflated a mere second later. 

Hunching his shoulder and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Stiles exhaled visibly and scuffed his right sneaker against the pavement. After a moment spend staring at his shoes, he seemed to come to a decision and started walking. Right towards Peter’s car.

On any other day Peter would have waited until Stiles had come level with the hood of his Volvo before turning on the engine, just to see him jump out of his pretty skin. But Stiles had already been spooked enough for one night.

He turned the key in the ignition without taking his attention from the boy, watching as the sudden roar of the engine made Stiles’ head snap up. Confusion flickered across his expressive face, then recognition, followed quickly by tired resignation. 

Not the warmest of welcomes, but he’d take it.

Stiles dragged his feet on his way over and hesitated when he reached the car.

Through the front side window Peter could see the conflict warring in whiskey-colored eyes. He held Stiles’ gaze without blinking, a passive, calm veneer painted over his growing impatience. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to force the boy’s hand. No more waiting.

Jaw clenching in determination, Stiles yanked open the door and climbed in, pulling it back shut behind him. The scent of antiseptic instantly clogged his senses, made it almost impossible to perceive the touch of sweat and blood and anxiety underneath. A piece of gauze covered Stiles’ temple and Peter curbed the urge to nose at it until he could be certain that it wasn’t too serious.

“What do you want?” Stiles bit out. Whether he was being rude on purpose or just exhausted, Peter couldn’t tell.

“Let me give you a ride.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, simply shifted into first gear and pulled out of the parking spot. When he had a moment of time to gauge Stiles’ reaction, the boy was blinking owlishly.

“I don’t,” he began, “Mrs. McCall can…,” then, defeated as memory caught up with him, “okay.”

Peter hummed in approval and left the hospital’s parking lot.

The car ride was spent mostly in silence, but Peter hadn’t expected Stiles to be particular chatty after saving his dad and generally taking part in eliminating the Darach and the Alpha Pack.

“This isn’t the way to my house,” Stiles pointed out after a while.

Observant even now, Peter felt oddly proud. If only he’d bitten Stiles instead of Scott all those months ago, things would have gone much different.

“It isn’t.”

“Then where are we going? I’m really not in the mood for games right now.” When Peter didn’t answer immediately, he continued: “Look, dude, just let me out and I’ll walk home. It’s really not that big a deal.”

Peter snorted and glanced at him, reveling in the exhausted anger he found in those beautiful eyes. There was a well of strength in this boy that fascinated him — he wanted to take him apart and examine the source of it, learn what it was made of, learn what it would take to deplete it, to replenish it.

“We’re going back to my place.”

Stiles did a double take.

“What?  _Why_? Are you going to kill me? After everything that’s happened today? Ugh, you  _are_ , aren’t you? That is so not fair, my luck is seriously the worst!”

Peter rolled his eyes.

“I’m not going to kill you, Stiles,” he promised. “Now that would be a waste.”

“Ugh. You’re such a creep.”

Peter glanced at him with a fake innocence he’d perfected long before hitting puberty, much to the consternation of everybody involved, especially Talia.

“When you compliment somebody it’s creepy,” Stiles clarified, not being fooled in the slightest. “Even when the compliment is as awful as ‘it would be a waste if you died’.”

“I could still kill you if that would make you more comfortable.”

“Ha ha.”

Stiles fell into a mulish silence, but didn’t attempt to exit the moving vehicle. Peter counted that as a win. 

It didn’t take long to reach the apartment complex he reluctantly called his home, not at this time of night. He noted in passing that most of the windows were dark; some were bathed in the bluish light of a computer screen, and one in the soft yellow of a bedside lamp. The majority of the people living here were either out or already asleep, or at least attempting the latter. That suited him just fine. The noise was sometimes almost unbearable during the day.

He parked the car in his personal spot and cut off the ignition. He could tell that Stiles was curious despite his best efforts to the contrary, for he made no further sound of protest as they got out and headed into the building.

The movement-sensitive lighting switched on as soon as they reached the door and they screwed up their eyes at the sudden brightness, Peter’s other senses instinctively kicking into overdrive. When nothing attacked him and he was finally able to see again, he relaxed. 

If Stiles had noticed the tensing of his shoulders or the pause in his movements, he didn’t let on.

Peter unlocked the front door and they entered the drab foyer, passing a block of brazen letterboxes on their way to the stairwell, but Peter paid them no mind. No one knew that he lived here, after all. At least no one whose mail was worth picking up. Stiles briefly glanced at the letterboxes, probably in an attempt to find PETER HALE printed on one of the small nameplates, or maybe expecting a witty alias. He’d be disappointed, then, because there were only numbers.

They took four flights of stairs, more slowly than Peter was used to, but Stiles was exhausted and it showed in his slow, dragging steps and the quiet panting that started halfway up. When they reached his door, 407, he fished the keys out of his pocket while Stiles swayed a little on his feet.

Peter wondered idly if the boy had gotten any sleep at all in the past couple of days. Unlikely, he decided. Not with the sheriff missing and people dying. Stiles really needed to take better care of himself, and Peter itched to teach him. Could there be anything more satisfying than getting loyal, self-sacrificing Stiles to put his own needs before those of others? He didn’t think so.

Having unlocked the door, he walked into his apartment, simply leaving it open for Stiles to follow him in. He didn’t turn on the light. Instead he let the darkness and familiar surroundings drain the tension from his body.

Scenting the air, he made sure that everything was as it should be, that his den was safe. Behind him, Stiles closed the door and carefully edged forward. 

Humans and their pitiful eyesight, he thought and wrinkled his nose.

He decided to take pity on the boy and ambled toward the small kitchenette. Switching on the small bulb of the exhaust hood above the stove, he bathed the room in dim light.

When he turned around he merely took one look at Stiles and knew that he should be getting him to bed. Everything else could wait. So he left Stiles standing awkwardly by the door to retrieve some pillows and a blanket and upon returning to the living room dumped them unceremoniously on the couch.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered when Stiles didn’t move a muscle.

Stiles frowned, but came a little closer.

“What’s the point? I have school in, like, four hours.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. As if that was going to happen.

“In the past two months your chemistry teacher was killed, so was the band teacher, the history teacher, your ‘English teacher’ just went missing, your class mate was almost strangled to death, the sheriff was kidnapped from school premises…”

“What’s your point?”

“You can miss a day of school, the administration will hardly notice.”

Stiles’ shoulders slumped a little and Peter knew he had him. If he’d told the boy that he needed to take care of himself, get some sleep, food, and a shower before taking on any new tasks, they’d still be arguing in an hour. The fact that Beacon Hills High was chaos right now, and that there was no point in going, was the sort of roundabout logic that circumvented habitual responses quite nicely.

Stiles toed off his sneakers and walked over to the couch, sitting down only after a moment’s hesitation. 

“Why are you doing this?”

Right.

Peter was the villain in this piece, and villains didn’t care.

But he didn’t have a ready-made answer, he didn’t know why.

The thought of Stiles getting hurt by the Darach made him so angry he almost lost his precarious temper. When he’d seen the battered remains of Stiles’ Jeep he’d regretted making Jennifer Blake’s death as quick as he had. He just wanted to have the boy where he could keep an eye on him, and ward off anyone who’d better stay away. Which encompassed anyone other than himself.

Was it possessiveness that had fueled his actions tonight?

Stiles was clever and loyal and had enough darkness inside of him to make Peter shiver in anticipation of all the deliciously questionable things he could be doing if only he denounced those who held him back with their constricting moral values.

The two of them certainly shared enough history that he didn’t want a random evil wannabe to lay a finger on what was rightfully his to destroy if he so pleased. Had he not staked his claim often enough by now?

Naturally, Peter mentioned none of that.

“Do you want to stay in your empty house right now?”

He said it as gently as he could manage, but Stiles still flinched. A moment passed in which Stiles probably thought about the house, the sheriff stuck at the hospital, and he shook his head.

“Go to sleep,” Peter repeated and turned away. He made his way down the hallway before they could exchange any more words and slipped into his bedroom to the sounds of Stiles taking off his jeans and hoodie, and the bedding being spread across the couch. Without turning off the dim light the boy went to sleep, and Peter decided to do the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some panic, some reassurance, and breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, another chapter! Thank you so much for the response guys, you’re the best! I wasn’t entirely sure anybody would read this kind of story.
> 
> I added Panic Attacks and PTSD to the tags, since, well, how can they all _not_ have PTSD when living on a Hellmouth? 
> 
> Still not beta-read, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, hit me up.
> 
> Oh, and [my tumblr.](http://lloydoholic.tumblr.com)

When Stiles surfaced from an exhausted sleep, at first he didn’t know what had woken him up. For a moment he simply lay there, face pressed into the pillow, disoriented and trying to regain his cognitive functions.

This was not his room, the pillow smelled different and the ambient noise was all wrong, but where would he be if not home? He lifted his head and took in his surroundings—daylight, what time? A living room, neither his own nor Scott’s—but his eyes were burning from general lack of sleep and he was too tired to process any of it.

Then, his phone pinged with an incoming text message.

He groaned and let his head fall back onto the pillow. How many messages would he find when he looked at his phone? It must have been what had roused him. Supernatural crises had conditioned him well, he’d probably wake up in his own coffin if somebody thought to send him a text.

After another moment of selfishly dragging out his blissful ignorance, he rolled onto his side, hugging the blanket to his chest, and reached for the phone he spotted on the coffee table.

As his brain sluggishly caught up with him one cell at a time, he started to remember the general situation he was in. It made him hesitate. Technically, there was a chance that they weren’t out of the woods yet. His grip around the phone tightened. Scott had assured him that it was ‘all good’ before telling him to get everybody to the hospital. But… that didn’t mean everything was still good this morning, did it?

Stiles swiped at the screen to unlock the phone, ignoring the slight tremor in his hands.

He could do this. Whatever it was, he would handle it.

Unless it was the hospital, and his dad—No.

Not thinking like that.

The phone log showed a couple of missed calls, all from Scott, and 7 new messages. He must have been out like a light. Swallowing thickly, he hoped against all hope that nothing bad had happened.

The first couple where nothing special, just Scott asking about him ( **where are you**  and  **u ok?** ). It was nice, he supposed, and Stiles was sure he’d feel all warm and fuzzy inside once his heart stopped beating wildly against his rib cage.

It was the third text that got his blood pumping. He sat up so quickly that he felt a little dizzy, but he pushed through the discomfort.

**we let deucalion go, no longer blind**

What?

His brain didn’t want to compute that sentence. Let him go? No longer blind? _What_?

In what universe was it okay to let the self-proclaimed Demon Wolf off the hook? Deucalion had attacked them, had maimed Derek, hell, he’d quasi kidnapped Scott himself. His pack of psychos had done so much damage, how did anyone think letting that guy—, when he’d probably just turn around and— _how can you cure blindness?_

With a painfully racing heart, he read the next message. Already knowing it could only be downhill from there.

**can’t find ms. Blake, no scent**

For a moment Stiles blankly stared at his screen.

When the meaning behind that badly crafted message finally caught up with him, it sent him into a tailspin. Ms. Blake was—, the Darach was—, she’d escaped—

Stiles sucked in a lungful of air, but it wasn’t enough, not enough oxygen, so he did it again, but it didn’t help—

The Darach was still on the loose, and his dad unable to protect himself, and the Darach could just finish what she’d started, and Stiles wouldn’t, he couldn’t—

**too injured tho, derek says no threat**

No threat? _No threat?_

His breathing turned into loud, ragged gasps and he started to shake so badly he could barely get the message on his screen into focus, but it didn’t matter, _because the Darach was still out there_ and he had to get up and do something about it, right now, he had to find a way to—, he couldn’t breathe, there was just no way, how was he supposed to—

Suddenly a warm, broad hand wrapped around the back of his neck, fingers digging almost painfully into his skin. His head was pushed down a little as another body pressed into his side, and a low voice started talking, but he couldn’t listen, he needed to—, needed to  _breathe_ , and—

“—focus on my voice, Stiles, you’re safe in my den, no one has breached the perimeter, the neighbor on the right side of the apartment—Mr. Cole—has already left for work, his place is empty—you’re safe—and the Thompson family to the left, a single mother with two little girls, are getting ready for school, there is nothing unusual going on, no strangers, no magic, you’re safe—”

_You’re safe, Stiles._

He gulped in some air and focused on the voice, Peter’s voice, on the warm weight of his hand, anchoring him in the now, tried to calm down, he was safe—

“—me, Stiles? Can you hear me?”

He gave a jerky nod.

“Good. I need you to do something for me.”

His breathing was a little slower now, so he nodded. He was safe, Peter wouldn’t let danger come near his home. The werewolf was cautious, and secretive, and dangerous himself, he wouldn’t—

“I need you to lift your right arm over your head, do you think you can do that for me?”

Could he—? Any toddler could do that! 

Indignation made his breath falter for a second, and he glared at his knees, because he didn’t think that lifting his head and dislodging Peter’s grip in the process was entirely worth it. 

Doing as he was asked, _reluctantly_ , Stiles focused his attention on lifting his right arm—God, his muscles were sore—and didn’t stop until it was way above his bowed head.

“Good,” Peter murmured, and there was a hint of praise in his voice that caught Stiles completely unawares. “I want you to sit up now.”

He nodded again, not trusting his vocal chords just yet, and dropped his arm. But when he tried to sit up, Peter squeezed his neck in warning.

“Slowly.”

Doing anything slowly was not exactly his forte, but Peter’s grip controlled his movement, only giving him enough leeway to fulfill the man’s idea of ‘slowly’. But it was all good, because there was no drop in blood pressure, no dizziness.

Stiles allowed himself a moment in which he took mental stock of his physical condition and realized that he could breathe again. He was disoriented, and felt like he’d been run over by a truck, but he was breathing.

Then he noticed that he was still clutching his phone, and adrenaline surged once more through his body. Grabbing his jeans from the floor he jumped up and tried to dress himself without letting go of his phone.

“Thanks for that,” he remarked absentmindedly and got one leg into his pants, “but I have to go now.”

What he really needed was a way of tracking the Darach. Maybe she was dumb enough and had used her credit card or car, he would have to break into the station again, monitor the, well, manhunt that was going on right now, Tara would probably let him—he swallowed thickly, and remembered. Tara wasn’t going to let him do anything anymore. Not ever. He pushed through the familiar feeling of dread and moved on, there was no time for grief—maybe he could get Agent Douchebag to tell him—

He stumbled a little as he tried getting his other leg into the pants, but was able to keep himself upright.

—how the search was going. It wouldn’t be too difficult, the man wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, and—

A strong arm wrapped around his torso and jerked him back down onto the couch. He landed with a dull thump that left him breathless for a second and had him bite down on a pitiful whine. He’d barely had the energy to get up once, having to do it all over again felt like a sheer impossible task.

“Why’d you have to do that,” he muttered dejectedly and glanced at Peter, who was watching him with a decidedly unimpressed look on his face.

“You’re not getting off this couch until you’ve slept a few more hours.”

Stiles sighed.

“I have stuff to do.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I need to break into the sheriff’s station,” he replied candidly, since Peter probably approved of the criminal nature of 50% of his actions and wouldn’t give him the ‘I’m disappointed in your lack of a moral code’ speech. “And con an FBI agent.”

Peter seemed to think about that for a moment, and Stiles chanced another look at his inbox. He skipped what he had already read, ignoring the voice in his head that urged him to get off his ass _right now_ , and hoped that the last couple of messages he hadn’t read yet wouldn’t drop another bomb on him.

But no. Thank God.

**at hospital, call me**

And finally:

**plz call**

When he returned his attention to Peter, the man was staring at him with unnerving intensity. He swallowed, wondering if he should look away instead of challenging the person who was still a homicidal werewolf most of the time. Holding a werewolf’s gaze was a challenge, wasn’t it? Derek had always acted as if it were, but maybe that was just Derek being Derek.

“Tell me, Stiles, is there honestly anything you can do at the station right now?”

The question startled him, and he reacted with his usual fervor, feeling scandalized that anybody would even question him, since there was _always_ something he could do at the station.

“ _Yes!_ ”

Peter merely kept staring at him without blinking. 

He backtracked a little.

“Probably?” And when Peter didn’t say anything: “Maybe, okay,  _maybe_! What? Do you expect local  _human_  law enforcement to handle this supernatural clusterfuck? They don’t even know what they should be looking for!”

“Hmmm,” Peter hummed, “it will undoubtedly take them a while until they’ve gathered enough relevant data for you to work with. Their efforts were delayed by the sheriff’s disappearance and the conflict of jurisdiction, were they not?”

That… made an awful lot of sense, if he was completely honest.

He slumped against the back of the couch and felt the last of his energy trickle out of him. He just wanted this to be over. Why couldn’t this be over?

“Now turn off your phone and go back to sleep.”

He blinked at the sudden instruction and realized that he must have zoned out there for a minute. Sleep  _did_ sound nice, but turning off his phone? What if something else happened while he was out? He needed to call Scott at the very least, make sure everything was okay at the hospital.

He found himself shaking his head and waved his phone at Peter. The man grabbed his wrist and didn’t let go, even when he halfheartedly tugged.

“I need to—”

“Tell your friends that you will call them later, if you must.”

“But—”

“Then turn off your phone.”

Peter’s voice brooked no argument. And, to be honest, it was kind of hard to properly disobey him— _Peter was not the boss of him_ , some part of his mind insisted, but that voice was getting quieter now—because he didn’t actually want to call Scott, didn’t want to deal with the consequences of Scott and Derek’s actions. He just wanted to sleep like Peter had told him to, curl up underneath a pile of blankets and ignore the world until the problems had solved themselves.

Peter was still holding on to his wrist, and only let go when Stiles nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good boy.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose at the patronizing tone, but had no energy left to come up with an appropriate insult. Instead he sent a quick message to Scott ( **im ok, ttul** ) and switched off his phone, hyperaware that Peter was still staring at him. He dropped the phone back on the coffee table and glanced questioningly at the werewolf, who got swiftly to his feet, now that his mission was apparently accomplished.

For a moment nothing happened, then Peter curled a hand around the side of his face and pushed him down onto the couch. He grunted when his face collided with the pillow, but didn’t otherwise react. He might have been, in fact, already half gone.

“Sleep,” was all the man said, before sauntering off.

His eyes fluttered close.

Did the benefit of sleeping in his underwear outweigh the effort of taking off his pants?

He was two items into his mental pro-and-con list before he drifted off to sleep.

*

It was an undetermined time past noon when he woke up again.

He opened his eyes, lids still heavy with sleep, but didn’t move right away. He just snuggled a little deeper into his pillow, basking in the warmth of the blanket wrapped securely around him, and quietly absorbed his surroundings.

There was daylight streaming in through the big window—not the early daylight from before, but a warmer, more saturated light that suggested early afternoon.

He could hear the sounds of somebody cooking, could  _smell_ the cooking, and his stomach rumbled on cue. He hadn’t really paid that much attention to food in the past couple of days, had wolfed down some granola bars when he’d had a minute, and the promise of warm, freshly-prepared food made his mouth water.

Stiles decided to sit up, but didn’t get very far.

He slumped sideways against the back of the couch, resting his cheek on the top. His head was heavy, and he didn’t feel entirely rested. But it was better than before, and the burning itch in his eyes was gone.

He let his gaze travel across the room— _Peter’s living room_ , and man, he had probably really needed to sleep if he’d thought getting into Peter’s car was a good idea, his decisions weren’t usually that questionable—and instantly approved of the overflowing bookshelves next to the window. Most of the space was taken up by the large sitting area in the middle of the room, and there was a small entertainment center propped against the wall. Some black-and-white prints of forests and seascapes adorned the walls, but the room was mostly free of redundant decorative objects.

Behind the large, comfy couch was a corridor leading to the rest of the apartment, at the very least a bedroom and bathroom and probably a study, since Stiles couldn’t see a desk or computer anywhere. And Peter definitely struck him as a person who’d own both.

The little kitchenette was right there next to the hallway and looked like it had once been a separate room; it was the most interesting spot in the apartment right now, and not only because it contained food and he was starving, but also because Peter Hale was in it and doing the cooking.

Stiles sat there and watched him for a while, watched his back as he was busy at the stove, making bacon and eggs by the smell of it. It was so domestic that it boggled his mind, but Peter had always been good at screwing with his mind.

When he spotted a steaming mug of (hopefully) coffee and a glass of orange juice already waiting for him (he supposed) on the breakfast bar, it got him moving.

He got up and almost tripped over the mess that was his legs and his pants and only noticed now how uncomfortable it had been to sleep partly-dressed in jeans. He wiggled out of the offending garment, grabbed his phone—still turned off—and padded toward the kitchenette. He slipped onto a bar stool and hoped that the coffee would bring some sense into the world.

“Morning,” he mumbled and abandoned his phone for the mug of coffee, wrapping his hands around the warm earthenware.

He half expected Peter to snark that it was already way past morning, like people generally tended to do whenever Stiles decided to replace the appropriate greeting with a ‘morning’. It _felt_ like morning when he’d just crawled out of bed, and he wondered why people were always so depressingly insistent in correcting his greetings anyway. If he said ‘morning’ when it was actually closer to evening, then he’d obviously done that on purpose, but maybe other people were allergic to the disruption of order, or something.

But Peter didn’t correct him.

“Good morning.”

The simple reply sounded fond, and Stiles couldn’t help but shiver a little at the unfamiliarity of it. He gulped down some coffee—black, no sugar, just the way he liked it—and pretended the warm feeling was caused by the beverage, and nothing else.

Peter turned off the burner and piled huge portions of food onto two plates. He turned around and placed them on the bar just as toast popped up from the toaster.

Stiles jumped a little at the unexpected sound. When Peter didn’t make fun of him and simply handed him a slice of toast, Stiles concentrated on his breakfast. He carefully scooped some scrambled egg onto his fork.

“This is really clichéd, you know?”

Peter walked around the bar and slid onto the stool to his left.

“Are you complaining?”

“Hell no,” he hastened to reply and shoved some food into his mouth.

The next few minutes were spent in silence as they both devoured their food, starving after the night they’d had. Stiles though that bacon and eggs had never tasted so good, but maybe he was biased. The Stilinski residence was a bacon-free zone after all, out of respect for his dad’s cholesterol levels, so this wasn’t exactly the type of breakfast he usually enjoyed. He was more of a cereal guy anyway. But stuffing his face with bacon really was a rare treat.

Eventually, his hunger was sated enough that his thoughts turned to other matters and he slowed down, taking a sip of juice and letting the cold, sour drink shock him awake a little more.

Pretending that this was a normal occurrence was all well and good (especially for his sanity), but he really needed to say something about last night. Well, this morning.

“About earlier…,” he began and then stopped.

He didn’t actually know what he wanted to say. He wanted to thank Peter, but a mere ‘thank you’ seemed too lame. He also wanted to explain himself, explain his momentary weakness, but he had no idea where to start.

Aware that Peter was watching him, he stabbed the last piece of bacon on his plate and pushed it around. When he didn’t continue, the werewolf eventually broke the awkward silence.

“Don’t mention it,” Peter drawled.

Hearing the dry humor in his voice, Stiles nodded, his lips curling into a tiny grin, and stuffed the last piece of bacon into his mouth.

When they were done with breakfast, Stiles realized that he really had to go. He put his dirty dishes into the sink like a semi-good guest and wondered what he should do with the bedding, but Peter anticipated his question.

“Leave it.”

“Alright.” And then, because he had to: “Uh, thank you.”

He met Peter’s assessing gaze for a moment, then ducked his head and got dressed. He really didn’t know how to feel about this helpful version of Peter Hale, but strangely enough, figuring out the man’s motives wasn’t a top priority right now. What even was his life?

Once he was fully dressed he looked back up, thinking that he should go back to the hospital, visit his dad, talk to Scott (maybe turn on his phone at some point, too), but before he could say any of that out loud Peter seemed to have guessed what he was thinking and beat him to it.

“I’ll drive you.”

There was no hesitation this time: “Yeah, okay.”

And if he regretted having to leave this alternate reality? Well, nobody would have to know that, would they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long-overdue pack meeting finally happens, but it doesn’t exactly go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and kudos and bookmarks, you guys rock! Additionally I'd like to thank my beta, [Twisted_Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Mind/pseuds/Twisted_Mind), who was a huge help to me. Seriously, you're awesome! The remaining mistakes are obviously my own.

The next couple of days passed in a blur.

Scott and Isaac split their time between standing guard at the hospital and helping Derek and Cora with their search for the Darach—but all potential leads had grown cold, if there had ever been any in the first place. Stiles hadn’t seen Lydia, but Allison assured him that she was fine, that they kept in constant contact. Stiles wondered if they were as afraid as he was.

He spent visiting hours at his dad’s bedside, sometimes with Allison and Scott, sometimes alone, and did his best to answer the Sheriff’s questions without making Beacon Hills sound like a war zone. His dad wasn’t above moving away if convinced it was the only way to keep him safe, and Stiles couldn’t let that happen. So he tried to explain what he knew, filling in the gaps in crime scenes and unsolved murders while downplaying his level of involvement and the amount of danger he’d been in. He wasn’t sure his dad believed him, but that was nothing new. He was getting pretty familiar with the bad taste it left in his mouth.

School was… depressing. People were whispering about Ms. Blake and it set his teeth on edge. He was already thinking about her constantly, he didn’t need the reminders. After two days of grinding his teeth, he’d snapped at a group of freshmen to stop talking about things they didn’t understand and had to be dragged away by Scott before it could get ugly. Not that Scott spent a lot of time at school. He and Isaac took strategic turns skipping classes, leaving the humans (and banshee—and what was up with that? Some days he was _so tired_ of this town) to deal with the mundane business of life.

Like a mountain of homework. The administration had apparently decided that keeping the students busy would prevent panic from spreading while they worked on replacing half of the staff.

On top of that, there was a new guidance counselor since the old one had disappeared (though Stiles would only believe Morrell was dead when he saw her corpse, and not a second before that), but Stiles had wiggled out of his session by convincing them he’d taken advantage of the hospital’s resources. The new guy was so swamped he’d barely asked any questions. Not that he’d have noticed any inconsistencies. Stiles could be a main character on  _Pretty Little Liars_  with all the practice he’d had. And all the drama.

When he wasn’t at school or trying to clean up after the supernatural, he was trying to get his life back on track. First order of business was his Jeep. The car was still where he’d left it wrapped around a tree, and he managed to enlist Cora’s help for the retrieval mission. They commandeered Derek’s SUV and towed the Jeep out of the preserve, Cora ribbing him the entire time when she saw how anxious he was. Stiles couldn’t even be mad at her. It distracted him from the dread that had settled into his bones. She didn’t know what the car meant to him. If he lost Roscoe on top of everything else? He didn’t want to think about it.

He waited for the mechanic’s verdict with his heart in his throat, bickering with Cora in the parking lot because he didn’t feel comfortable waiting inside where he’d once been paralyzed and forced to witness a murder. (If they kept this up, he wouldn’t be able to go _anywhere_ in this town without having flashbacks.) When the mechanic finally told him that the damage was repairable, but wouldn’t be cheap, he nearly fainted in the wake of his dissipating panic.

Cora was strangely silent on the drive back, and Stiles wasn’t surprised when she finally asked him about it in her ‘why are you the way that you are’ tone of voice. “Why is that piece of junk so important to you?”

If anybody else had said that about his Jeep he’d have flown off the handle. But he was quickly learning that Cora’s default behavior was “offensive” and he didn’t mind it so much anymore. Like with other Hales before her, the prickly personality grew on you. Like mold.

“It was my mom’s.”

She took a moment to process that and then turned back to the road, nodding with an unreadable expression.

They drove in silence for a while.

When Cora spoke again, she offered a rare tidbit about herself. “I have this scarf,” she said, more to the passing scenery than to him. “It’s probably more holes than fabric by now.”

She didn’t elaborate, didn’t tell him who it had belonged to once upon a time. She didn’t need to, because _who_ wasn’t important when you’d lost most of your family in one fell swoop. He understood.

*

When his dad was released from the hospital it wasn’t so much to go home as to move into the station. He only came back to catch a few hours of sleep in an actual bed, shower, and change clothes. Stiles had the niggling suspicion that his dad’s deputies had threatened to remove the Sheriff from the premises by force if he didn’t fulfill the minimum requirements of ‘going home’ between shifts.

As much as Stiles understood the necessity of his dad’s actions—Beacon Hills was in shambles after all the murders—he still hated it. Spending his days by himself in an empty house reminded him too much of the time right after his mom passed away.

But there was nothing he could do to change it. He did what he had to do to keep the household running: planning meals for the week, buying groceries, taking care of the laundry, and making sure his dad’s uniforms were there as needed.

At least Dad wasn’t drinking again.

So what if Stiles wasn’t the priority right now? There was so much to cover up—magical trees and werewolves and ritual deaths (not that his dad knew about  _that_ part)—that the Sheriff needed to focus his attention on that. Stiles helped as much as possible, trying to ease his dad’s workload. He was good at finding explanations that sounded plausible, but sometimes he wondered whether he should have just left it to his dad. Sometimes the Sheriff wore an assessing expression on his face, and Stiles knew he was asking himself when and how his son had become so good at lying, and what else he didn’t know about Stiles.

And he was right to wonder.

Because Stiles hadn’t told him everything about the past year, and especially not the things that were incriminating, or showcased his moral ambiguity. He had even made a point of never leaving the station without illegally obtained information (even if it was of the ‘no new evidence acquired’ variety).

Who could blame the Sheriff for distrusting his son? Stiles certainly didn’t.

Not when his bedroom looked like an evidence box had exploded all over it. There were spreadsheets, mind maps and diagrams, phone records, credit card bills, photos of the Darach’s victims, and witness statements pinned over every surface—to say nothing of his notes on the supernatural and everything Ms. Blake had ever said to him or his friends. Hell, he’d even gotten his hands on her rental agreement and past employment records. When he wasn’t doing homework or housework, he poured over every scrap of evidence he had, again and again, trying to find a different angle that would help him find her.

He was running himself into the ground, but he couldn’t stop.

He couldn’t sleep with the Darach still out there, and when he _did_ sleep he had nightmares he couldn’t remember but which left him drained, feeling as if he’d just clawed his way out of his own grave. On the rare occasions when he managed to be completely honest with himself, he could admit those dreams weren’t normal, that they were the consequence of being ritually sacrificed.

But so far he was still able to cope, was used to it, in fact, since he’d had to take care of himself for the longest time, and there was just no way he would go and ask Deaton about those dreams. The Druid  _had_  warned them about the price they’d pay.

Besides, he napped whenever he could, and wasn’t falling asleep in class, so he was still good. He was dealing with it.

*

They had their first honest-to-God pack meeting roughly a week after the lunar eclipse.

Stiles figured it was because Scott and Isaac couldn’t keep skipping class, especially when they hadn’t been able to find anything useful, no matter how far they went into the woods or past the town line. There wasn’t even a hint of the Darach’s scent anywhere. So they needed to regroup. Form a new plan of attack. Decide on a rota that made sense and didn’t spread them too thin.

Convenience brought them to Derek’s loft, even though Scott was sort-of their Alpha now. Stiles wasn’t sure how that actually worked—and he had a sneaking suspicion that the werewolves didn’t either, especially since Deaton had been vague when telling Scott about his True Alpha gift. So no help from that corner, though Stiles sometimes wondered if Scott was just really bad at relaying pertinent information in what sometimes felt like a giant game of telephone.

All the members of the various pack configurations were present—plus Allison, who acted more like she was her own one-woman-pack these days. Lydia, too, who still didn’t think being pack was a sensible choice (and who could blame her?), but wanted information anyway. It was the first time Stiles had seen Lydia longer than in passing and he had to admit that she looked a little wrecked. The bruises around her throat had turned into an ugly purple color, a stark contrast to the unhealthy pallor of her skin. There were tired circles underneath her eyes, but her expression was still as sharp as ever.

Yeah. They’d all taken a hit.

It took a while until they were assembled—on the floor, the couch, its arm rest, the lone chair. The loft was huge and shouldn’t have felt as crowded as it did. Maybe it was because Derek looked so disgruntled with them invading his space, or maybe it was because they were all trying to forget what had happened here not long ago. Boyd’s ghost was pressing down on them, that day.

Only Peter was missing, but Stiles was almost convinced that the eldest Hale was creeping around upstairs, listening in but not bothering to join them. He wished he could do the same.

When Scott finally got started—motivated by the fact that Lydia was looking dangerously impatient—he didn’t get past thanking them for coming before Derek interrupted, dropping a conversational bomb.

“Cora and I are leaving.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What do you mean, ‘leaving’?” asked Scott, a frown marring his features.

Derek crossed his arms, seeming as impatient as Lydia had been. “Cora has a pack. She only came here to find me. She did, so now we’re leaving to join them.”

Anxiety spread through Stiles like a virus. Derek was leaving? For real? After everything they’d…?

Of course he was leaving.

“Will you come back?” Isaac asked, sounding as alarmed as Stiles felt. And while he didn’t know what had sent the boy to Scott’s house, or what Derek had done to make him leave, Derek was still the one who’d turned him. His supernatural sire, as it were. Isaac had a reason for wanting him to stay, something other than the growing dread in Stiles’ stomach.

“Probably not.”

Intellectually, Stiles understood. Beacon Hills was a hell hole, and had taken so much from the Hales. Derek had to get out while there was time, while he still could, while _his sister_ still could. It made sense. Stiles would want to leave, too.

But he couldn’t.

Without Derek here to help them, how were they going to survive?

Another support beam gone.

He gulped down air, and tried to stave off the panic attack he could feel coming on. Cora glanced at him, her face giving nothing away, but Stiles wondered if his heartbeat sounded as crazed as it felt. If he reeked of anxiety.

He needed to get a grip. Right now. A distraction. So he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind: “Can we turn your loft into a clubhouse while you’re gone?”

Derek looked at him as if he thought Stiles suffered from brain damage. “No.”

“I’d keep it clean, okay? You wouldn’t know the difference.”

“No.”

“You should get some plants; I can water them for you.”

“ _Stiles._ ”

“Your lack of trust is hurtful. Seriously, Derek, emotional trauma right here.”

“ _Be that as it may,_ ” Lydia cut in, more irritated than Stiles had seen her in a while, “can we please get on with it?”

Derek huffed, clearly put out that Lydia was mad at _him_ , since Stiles had been the difficult one, but fell silent. Cora snorted, but didn’t comment. Her acerbic brand of sarcasm would only have added fuel to the fire.

Stiles was able to breathe a little easier. Crisis averted.

Scott took the lead and started reporting his and Isaac’s findings, which happened to be nothing, but Stiles already knew that. Everybody already knew that. If they had found anything in the past week, they would have raised the alarm.

Stiles listened to Scott’s steady voice with its apologetic cadence and ground his teeth, trying not to say how stupid it had been to let the Darach go. He knew it was a matter of time before he exploded. He hoped it wouldn’t happen until he was home, where nobody could witness the melt-down. It was wishful thinking, but that was all he had these days.

Allison took the floor next, telling them that her dad hadn’t had much luck either. There was nothing on the hunter grapevine. Not even regarding Deucalion. Disappointing, but not unexpected.

Peter came wandering downstairs just as discussion broke out over whether they should keep looking for the Darach, or return to their lives. Stiles felt satisfaction settle low in his gut at having correctly predicted Peter’s whereabouts. He watched as the man circled the group and settled on the fringes, leaning against the enormous dining table behind them. Nobody paid him much attention, and Peter seemed content to merely observe, but Stiles didn’t count on it to last.

“It’s a waste of time,” Lydia muttered. “She probably used magic to cover her tracks. And don’t forget that she can change her appearance. She could be a random stranger passing us on the street and we’d never know.”

“I don’t think she’ll be back. Most of the Alpha pack is gone. She has no reason to stick around,” added Scott.

That struck a nerve, and Stiles couldn’t keep quiet any longer. The unrelenting fear was gnawing at him again. “We need to find her and at the _very least_ lock her up.”

Scott turned, surprised at the bite in his voice. _Of course_ , Stiles thought. _It’s not like Scott’s been around to watch me unravel_.

“At the very least?” Scott echoed.

Peter chose that moment to contribute, using the mocking tone that had the power to drive Stiles up the wall. “He means ‘kill’.”

Scott ignored him, without so much as twitching in his direction. Stiles would be proud if he weren’t so furious.

“Yes, Scott, _at the very least_.” For a moment he hovered on the edge, thinking maybe he could keep a lid on it, but then he exploded. “I can’t believe you just _lost the Darach_. And then you let Deucalion go! _Deucalion_! You know, the so-called Demon Wolf? After all the people he killed!”

“You know, I’m with Stiles on this one,” Cora piped up, casually popping her claws and inspecting them with interest.

Scott stared, but it was Isaac who replied, apparently anxious to defend his quasi-Alpha. “It’s not _you_ who’d have to kill them. You aren’t the one who has to live with yourself, after.”

“Put them in front of me and I’ll do it,” he bit out. “Because you know what I have to live with now instead? The constant fear that I’ll wake up to another bunch of human sacrifices. Maybe my dad will die for real this time! I can fucking live with their blood on my hands if it means that they can’t hurt us anymore. What if I find one of you in the morgue next time, huh? How can you feel safe with that psycho still around? If you had done your fucking job, I wouldn’t have to spend my free time looking for anything that will let me find her!”

Stiles didn’t know when he’d jumped to his feet, he just found himself towering over the pack, most of them staring as if they’d never seen him before. It was like his body had been taken over by the helpless rage he felt. His fists were clenched, aching with the need to hit something, his voice growing louder with every word, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t.

“You know what else I have to live with? That Deucalion is probably planning our demise as we speak! We decimated his pack! Do you really think he’ll forgive and forget because you gave him his eyesight back? Not only did the Hales defy him, even his shiny True Alpha didn’t want to join his club. And because you let him go, he’ll have time to shop for new members before coming back to kill us all!”

It wasn’t a surprise that Lydia reacted first, sitting ramrod straight and snapping right back. She’d never taken anybody’s bullshit and she wasn’t starting now.

“ _Enough,_ ” she hissed. It sounded so tired that Stiles almost regretted his outburst. Maybe they should’ve met when they were better-rested. But the regret flew out of the window when her next words hit him like a slap in the face. “I was nearly killed and my life is the fucking sequel to _The Sixth Sense_ , but you don’t see me throwing a tantrum!”

His rage drained away, leaving him eerily calm.

“Stiles,” Scott said softly, but Stiles ignored him, wondering when his life had turned into such a minefield.

His lips curved into an ugly, self-deprecating smile.

“You’re right,” he said evenly. “Nobody strangled me. I mean, what right do I have to be upset? I only found the body of my oldest friend in the morgue and lost the woman who helped take care of me after my mom died. There’s no need to be upset. It’s not like I almost lost my _dad_ , or my surrogate mom. They were only kidnapped, after all. And I suppose teachers dropping dead left and right is nothing that concerns me, or losing Erica and Boyd. How silly of me. Stupid Stiles and his temper tantrums.”

Then he turned around and walked out of the loft, growing more numb with every step. He couldn’t stick around after that. He felt raw, exposed. He wasn’t surprised when Peter followed him down the stairs.

Unfortunately, his Jeep was still at the garage, so he’d either have to wait until Scott was ready to drive him home or walk. Stiles didn’t think he had the energy for that, so he’d have to wait. When Stiles dragged himself outside, the fresh air did little to revive him. He felt almost as bad as after an all-nighter. Sighing, he walked to Scott’s car and only then realized that he didn’t have the keys.

He leaned against the vehicle and let his forehead thunk against the roof. It prompted a snort from Peter, who had caught up with him.

“Here,” Peter said, dangling a set of keys by his face.

Stiles pushed away from the car and took the keys. He frowned. “Did you pick-pocket him?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “He tossed them at me on my way out.”

Stiles hummed while he mulled that over, deciding it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he was in possession of Scott’s keys. He walked to the passenger side and unlocked the door, then flopped sideways into the seat, his legs dangling out. After a moment Peter followed him and leaned against the back-seat door.

For a moment they just stared across the street in silence.

“The reason you can’t find Ms. Blake is because she’s already dead.”

Stiles startled at that and angled his head sharply to the side. “What?”

Peter shrugged. “I killed her.”

Just, _what_?

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He didn’t know how to feel about this, relief and outrage warring inside his ribcage.

Peter raised an eyebrow. “You disapprove of murder.”

“Only the murder of _innocents_ ,” he half-yelled. “And my friends.”

“Hmm.” For whatever reason, that seemed to amuse Peter.

“Bastard.”

He looked away and struggled to control his emotions. He’d have time to freak out about it later. When he was alone.

Peter should have told him. Would have, probably, if he’d known Stiles was spending so much time on finding the Darach. He still remembered _that night_ , and how Peter had taken care of him. If Peter wanted him to sleep and eat, and stop beating himself up about things he couldn’t change … Stiles swallowed. Yes, Peter would have told him if he’d known. Which meant that the werewolf was apparently far less of a stalker than he’d previously thought.

It was a lot to take in.

And yet, this solved only one of his problems.

“Can you do Deucalion next?”

Peter chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Suddenly there was the sound of heels on pavement. It was all the warning Stiles got before Lydia appeared around the hood of the car. She glared at Peter, then ignored him to crouch by Stiles’ legs.

“Stiles,” she said curtly, as if it were difficult for her, then ploughed on with the determination he had always admired. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.”

Stiles dragged a hand over his face. “No, I … we shouldn’t have had this meeting.”

They shared a look, both of them exhausted and exasperated.

“I didn’t mean to belittle you,” he added, looking down at his hands.

Lydia had gone through so much, had been at the receiving end of physical violence, even when she hadn’t been involved, and he felt nauseous just thinking about it.

“We’re both entitled to our feelings.” She squeezed his hand. “Your friend? You never said anything.”

It should have sounded accusatory, but didn’t. More like an observation. It was the only reason he was able to answer the implied question.

“Yeah, Heather, she—” he swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “I was at her party, and we—I left her alone for five minutes and the Darach kidnapped her. Later—when Mrs. McCall wanted to show us a body in the morgue, it was her. Head bashed in, strangled, and throat cut.”

He swallowed again and tried not to look at Lydia’s horrified expression. Peter shifted and Stiles felt the irrational need to be close to him, to have Peter’s grip around the back of his neck and hear that soothing voice in his ear, repeating that he was safe.

“It was right at the beginning of the school year and we weren’t really talking to each other—you and Allison to me and Scott, I mean—and Scott didn’t buy my theory about human sacrifices, so I just … didn’t mention it. It wasn’t a thing yet.” He shrugged. “And when it turned out to _be_ a thing there were already so many bodies that I didn’t feel like talking about her. Or Tara.”

Lydia pulled him down into an awkward hug and he clung to her, despite wishing it was somebody else. “I’m so tired of this town,” he mumbled into her hair.

She huffed a laugh, the gust of air brushing the skin of his neck. It was either that or wallow in misery.

“Who isn’t,” muttered Peter under his breath, and for one brief moment they were all in perfect agreement. Then Lydia remembered that she hated Peter and let go, pushing to her feet. She brushed the wrinkles from her dress and was once again her indestructible self.

“I don’t know what it is you two are doing,” she started, and then addressed the next part directly to Stiles, “but we all have to take comfort where we can get it.”

For a moment he thought he’d misunderstood. Lydia couldn’t possibly be implying what he thought she was. But she waited for him to make the connection, because she wasn’t going to spell it out if he wasn’t smart enough to catch her drift. It was one of the things he loved about her.

But she _couldn’t_ be okay with him finding comfort in Peter, could she? If that was even what he was doing. He couldn’t be sure about anything just then.

Stiles’ main objection to Peter had always been that he’d hurt Scott and Lydia, and because of that they would never be okay with having him around. No matter how fascinated Stiles was with him. And he couldn’t heap more hurt on his friends, especially not with this. And integrating Peter into their strange, undiscussed pack formations _would_ cause pain. No matter how much he needed comfort—comfort he was clearly not getting, neither from his dad, nor his pack—he couldn’t do that.

Maybe it was foolish—hubris, even—to think he was capable of having that much impact on any of them. It was probably bad enough that Peter was alive and connected to their group. But if your friend sought out the werewolf that hurt you, wouldn’t that make everything worse?

But Lydia was telling him it was okay. She would probably never forgive Peter, would never be comfortable around him, but she could let Stiles have this. Because apparently she knew him well enough to understand that he needed her to be okay with it—that he would rather sacrifice his own wellbeing than compromise that of his friends.

He nodded, unable to wrap his head around her reasoning. Maybe they could have a conversation about this after Stiles himself knew what was going on.

There was no time to verbalize his thanks, however, because the rest of the pack came spilling out of the building. Lydia gave him one last look before turning on her heels and marching to Allison’s car.

Peter, too, stepped away just as Scott and Isaac reached the other side of the vehicle. “Well, as long as we have _her_ permission,” he drawled, sarcasm all but dripping from his mouth.

Stiles rolled his eyes, and tried not to think about what it was that might or might not warrant permission. Instead he fell back on his tried-and-tested method of deny and retreat.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said and dragged his legs into the car.

Their eyes met briefly.

“I’m certain you will, Stiles.”

A shiver travelled down his spine at Peter’s silky tone, but thankfully the werewolf had already started down the street toward his own car. Stiles could at least pretend that Peter hadn’t noticed his reaction.

Now all he needed to do was figure out what the hell was going on between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still only have a vague idea where this is going, please keep an eye on the ever-changing tags in case anything squicks you. I also upped the rating to E.
> 
> **Tell me what you think so far?**


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